


starting to get to me

by playingforkeeps



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Cryptid Hunters, Alternate Universe - Ghost Hunters, Based On Buzzfeed Unsolved, Declarations Of Love, Getting Together, M/M, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-25
Updated: 2019-03-04
Packaged: 2019-08-07 09:03:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16405382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/playingforkeeps/pseuds/playingforkeeps
Summary: “You’ve been dragging us to bumfuck nowhere with that mating call for three years when you hear there’s a sighting. But we’ve never considered: what happens if Bigfoot answers it?That’sthe goal, isn’t it? You’ve been after that good, good Bigfoot dick this whole time!”Dex sputters. “I don’t want to fuck Bigfoot! Jesus, Nurse!” He glances at the others, disbelieving. “Back me up here, guys.”Silence. Lardo says, “You do own a Bigfoot mating call, dude.”





	1. Chapter I

**Author's Note:**

  * For [zim-tits (beansprean)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/beansprean/gifts).



As soon as they enter the room, the door shuts behind them with an ominous click, leaving Chowder out in the hallway. Dex freezes turned halfway towards Nursey.

That definitely wasn’t supposed to happen.

“You have the key, right?” Nursey shifts, digging in his messenger bag for something Dex can’t see. “I gave it to you before we came in.”

Dex shakes his head. “No, you have the key. I told you to pick it up from the table when we left.”

A beat. Nursey’s eyes widen. “Fuck. Hey, C?” He calls toward the door. “Can you let us out, dude? This doesn’t seem right.”

The back of Dex’s neck starts to prickle. He crosses back to the door and tries the knob. Locked. It barely move when he jiggles it, but when he pushes hard against the door, there’s an oddly final snap in the mechanism.

“No. _Fuck_.” Now the knob won’t even budge. “Nonononono. This can’t be happening.” This was the one thing Lardo promised him when he joined the team—no small spaces. God, he should’ve put it in his fucking contract. For that matter, he should’ve written a fucking contract. His palms itch. “I’ve gotta get out of here. Chowder, can you hear us?”

An answer, half-muffled. “Guys? Why’d you close the door?”

“We didn’t close the door, it locked itself.”

The door jiggles from the other side. Dex wants to bang his head against the wall “Guys, it, um, isn’t moving? I’m gonna go get Lardo. She’ll know what to do. Just, uh, sit tight!”

In the hallway, they hear the patter of footsteps moving further away, and then nothing.

To stop himself from hyperventilating, Dex takes quick stock of the room. It isn’t even a room, really: a storeroom at best, maybe six by seven, and just one window high up on the east wall. Enough that they won’t run out of oxygen, at least. Probably. He’s not going to die here, but the thought is very much there.

Nursey says, “You know, there is a certain irony to you being trapped in a closet after Saturday.”

Dex wheels on him. He knows he’s glaring, but there’s too much anxiety twisting and bubbling under his skin to do anything else. “Jesus fuck, Nurse, is it really the time for this?”

“Hey, hey, hey.” A hand closes around his upper arm. “Dex. Hey. Look at me.” Nursey’s fingers are warm and grounding, a welcome weight over the heat of his skin. “You’re gonna be alright. Just stay with me, okay?”

Breathe in. Breathe out.

He nods. That much takes a lot. “I’m—yeah. Great. Fuckin’ dandy.”

Nursey grins. “Besides.” He reaches into his messenger bag, and Dex halfway groans when he sees what’s in his hand. “I brought the spirit box.”

 

 

“Okay,” calls Nursey from his spot perched on the kitchenette counter, “the true alignment test. Gay/bi/lesbian, and then Spotify, Pandora, and Youtube.”

Lardo answers almost immediately. She’s lying upside down on the couch, feet stretched over the back and head dangling toward the floor, staring at her phone. Next to her, Chowder, who’ll never admit he’s a lightweight, lets out a whistling snore. “Pandora bi. Definitely. Best playlists.”

Saturday night, about one-fifteen in the morning. They’re all a little drunk post-wrap, and Dex is leaning back into the comfiest chair he could find and enjoying the warmth that cheap orange juice and even cheaper vodka give the room. After the last five hours editing footage of Nursey’s attempt with an Ouija board (this one almost impressively unsuccessful), he deserves this.

“Pandora’s too temperamental.” Ford, who’s kinda-sorta working on her embroidery project on the floor, looks like an indignant puppy. “Youtube lesbian all the way.”

“You just like that ‘cause of the craft tutorials,” Lardo argues. “Doesn’t count as music streaming.”

“We didn’t specify music streaming, just platforms. And I like cross-stitch projects, so. Youtube lesbian it is.”

Lardo sticks her tongue out and shoves Chowder’s feet away from her face.

From the kitchenette, Nursey pipes up, “I’m with Lards. Pandora’s got a good chaotic energy to it. I can get down with that.”

“Bull-fucking-shit, Nurse.”

It surprises everyone when Dex talks, including himself. He’s always a little quiet after editing, but tonight, his tongue feels loose and lazy. “C’mon, dude, we all know you’re way too anal about your playlists to let a computer make them.”

Nursey smiles. There’s this slow, warm smile that he reserves only for when people surprise him, and now it gleams across the room at Dex. Dex feels his cheeks heat up a little more. “Alright, Dex, expert in the art of streaming platforms, what are you? Enlighten us.”

Another swig of his makeshift screwdriver, and suddenly his words are much more slippery than he means them to be. “I’m a Spotify bi,” he says, without thinking. “A Spoti-bi.”

For just half a second, he feels the whole room staring at him, and the part of him that’s still small-town-queer panics. Three years working together, and he’s managed not to bring it up. _Calm down_ , he tells it, annoyed. _It’s okay. People can know here_.

But there’s still that fear, that instinctive tightness in his throat that means he’s going to have to backtrack into straight ally territory real fast or leave, and he’s just about to get up when—

“Spoti-bi”, Nursey repeats, that lazy grin curling across his face. “That’s fucking brilliant, Poindexter. Who’da thought you had it in you?”

Just like that, the room’s vibe slides back into normality. Lardo twists awkwardly around to fist-bump him, and Dex’s jaw unclenches for maybe the first time since he joined the team. Across the room, Nursey flicks a stray Cheeto at him. It misses by a mile.

“Your aim fucking sucks, dude. Weren’t you an NCAA athlete?”

Nursey blows him a kiss.

 

 

It had been a nice moment while it lasted. But now, three days later, he’s regretting everything. Not coming out to the team, more just being on it at all, because fucking Nursey had decided that today was absolutely the day to start their investigation of that old Philadelphia asylum. And since there’s no arguing with Nursey when he’s on a ghost chase, Dex had followed him from the hallway into a goddamn closet of all places, even though they knew the doors close randomly in this place, and apparently Dex’s life doesn’t have enough irony in it already.

He bangs his head against the door. Behind him, the spirit box crackles. Nursey whispers, “If you’re here with us, say something.”

The other irony of this, that he’s trapped in a closet _with Nursey_ , is something he hasn’t deigned to think about yet. After all, it’s not like he has a crush on Nursey. Dex is an adult. He has rent and his own kitchen appliances. He doesn’t get crushes.

It’s just that nobody with shoulders that broad should be allowed to have eyes that soft or a laugh that snorts sometimes. And the fact that one time, Dex once saw Nursey cry because he saw a video of a cat that he said was just too small. Dex’s dumb gay heart can really only take so much.

 _Exposure therapy_ , he thinks dumbly. Maybe when they get out of this he won’t be so hopeless.

The spirit box sputters. “Holy shit!” Nursey fiddles with one of its dials. “Dude, did you hear that? That sounded like a word!”

He shakes his head. “It sounded like a keyboard smash.”

“Maybe the ghost is gay.” Nurse’s talking more to himself than Dex now. “Fuck, if we actually answer the question and C isn’t here to record it, I think I’ll actually literally die.” He raises his voice toward the ceiling: “I support you, gay ghost! Let us know if you’re here!”

And there’s the other reason he can’t have a crush on Nursey. Because at his core, Nursey is someone who lies on the dirty stone floor of an abandoned asylum trying to coax a nonexistent ghost to communicate with them with Trevor Project platitudes.

“Come on, ghost,” he’s currently whispering. “I know things weren’t so great when you were here, but things are getting better, I promise. I mean, fuck, not the current administration, but we can get married and adopt now! And I hear Philly Pride is _lit_. You’d probably love it.” He pauses. “If you communicate with us, I’ll put on music. How do you feel about Neko Case?”

“That’s not even the right time period.”

Dead silence. On the floor, Nursey turns slowly to look at him. One of his eyebrows creeps up his forehead. “Oh? And, uh, what would you suggest to charm the ghost, Dex?”

Dex, whose regret has spread from joining the team to ever being born in the first place, grimaces at the door. He hadn’t even meant to say it out loud. Enabling Nursey isn’t usually his favorite thing to do, but it’s better than doing nothing.

Nursey wrinkles his nose, teasing. “Come on, Dex. First rule of improv is yes-and.”

“I was theater tech.”

“Same dif.”

Reluctantly, Dex leans against the wall and glares at the spirit box. “Well, if ghosts existed, which I’m not saying they do, because they don’t—” Nursey’s eyebrow raises higher—”but _if_ they were to exist, hypothetically, they’d prefer music from their time period, and this asylum’s from the nineteenth century. So if you’re gonna try music to lure the hypothetical ghost out, you want classical music. Chopin, maybe.”

Nursey’s voice is measured when he speaks, but he’s obviously struggling to keep down a smile. “So, if ghosts were to hypothetically exist, and obviously this is all pure conjecture, we could summon them with a nice etude?”

He’s digging in his pocket again, this time for his phone. A few clicks later, and the thin sound of violins echoes around the closet. “We're playing Tchaikovsky for a ghost?” Dex asks skeptically.

Nursey beams. “Yeah! It’s my study music.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s still the wrong decade.”

“But much gayer.”

“You’re the worst person I’ve ever met,” Dex tells him seriously.

“Shh. Let the magic happen.” Nursey stretches out on the floor, one arm behind his head, and pats the spot beside him. When Dex hesitates, he props himself up on his elbows. “It might make you feel better.”

He hesitates for another moment before sliding down the wall and settling by Nursey, who grins at him. “Alright?”

 _Breathe in_ , he thinks numbly. _Breathe out._ After a moment, his fists uncurl. “Alright.”

They lie on the floor for a few minutes, listening to the overture. Dex’s sister played in her high school orchestra, so he knows the theme pretty well, and the familiarity of it is grounding. Beside him, Nursey’s eyes are closed as he conducts idly with one hand. “I used to know the lyrics to this.”

Dex frowns. “There aren’t any lyrics.”

A little smile, like the flickering frame of old film. “In that town we used to go in the summer, my moms and me, there was always this concert in the park, and the choir sang this song along with the orchestra. They used a tropar—a Croatian prayer. It was, uh…” He pauses, deep in thought. “It began with _spasi gospodi_ , but that’s all I’ve got. Worked great with the music.”

In the low light from the window, Nursey’s face is utterly relaxed, as if the memory has blurred the edges of his features. He’s talked about the vacations sometimes, just enough that Dex googled the sleepy beach town out of curiosity. Whatever soft thing is on his mind must be caught somewhere back there. “Have you heard from your moms lately? You haven’t said much.”

The dreamy expression fades, but his eyes crinkle a little. “They still Skype me every Thursday so I can check in on the cat. Did I tell you Mama might be doing some guest lectures at NYU?”

“No. In what?”

“Econ department. She keeps saying it’s not a big deal, but Ammi couldn’t stop talking about it. I think she considered hiring congratulation skywriters for a hot second.” A different smile now, smaller, more private. The one strictly reserved for talking about his family. Dex isn’t sure when he got into the habit of cataloguing Nursey’s smiles. “Mama really wanted to be an academic when she was younger, did you know that?”

He waits for Dex’s head-shake, a signal to launch into a story about his moms’ college days. Dr. and Mrs. Nurse—Ammi and Mama, respectively—are two of Dex’s favorite people. Part of it is the way Derek talks about them, that he really believes his moms are the coolest people alive. But Dex’s family being as chaos-prone as it is also means that sometimes he goes for tea with Dr. Nurse, on the rare occasions that he’s in New York and Nursey isn’t. He’s still a little terrified of her, but lately she’s started calling him _habibi_ , which Nursey assures him is an honor reserved mostly for family and the cat.

Nursey, though, for some inexplicable reason, adores Dex’s family. They’d gone up to Maine a few months earlier for Thanksgiving, and the sight of Nursey cross-legged on the living room floor with four or five ginger Poindexter cousins climbing on him had done things to Dex’s heart that he doesn’t like to name.

Okay, he might be a little more into Nursey than he’d thought. This is fine. They’re only stuck in a small room together for the foreseeable future.

Shit.

Before Dex can fall too far down this particular rabbit hole, the spirit box lets out an ungodly hiss, and Nursey flails in his attempt to grab ahold of it. “We’ve got contact!”

What it actually sounds like is a bad signal and a worse antenna. Dex doesn’t point this out.

“Khhhx. Hkksx,” says the spirit box. 

“Did you hear that?” Nursey’s up on his feet and buzzing. “Did you _fucking_ hear that?”

Dex frowns. “Hear what?”

“Hear what? It said your _name_ , Dex. This is contact. This is real, actual contact! Holy fucking shit, dude, we’re proving the existence of ghosts, right here, right now.”

He spins back to Dex and grabs his face. “Listen, and I mean this with all the seriousness in the world, I have never loved you more than I do in this moment.” Before Dex has time to react, Nursey’s pulling him forward and kissing him on both cheeks. He lets him go and jumps back again, yelling toward the faraway window, “Tchaikovsky, you beautiful gay bitch, you’ve done it again!”

Dex has no idea what exactly Tchaikovsky has done, because his brain has apparently stopped working altogether. “I think,” he says, but his tongue can’t seem to form any words beyond that. Nursey. Kiss. An electrical error, in the spirit box, maybe. A faulty wire. Kiss. Nursey. Nursey. Nursey.

The world smells like the back of an old closet, and his skin feels warm all over, and he’s so fucking gone on someone who’s currently on his hands and knees in front of a shitty transistor radio and thinks he’s talking to a ghost.

“I know you can hear us,” he says to the box, which emits a vaguely crackly whistle. “You’re safe here, it’s okay. Is there anything you want to tell us?”

With a final piercing squeak, the spirit box gives up the ghost. Dex immediately curses himself for thinking of the pun. Its lights go out, and Nursey’s shoulders collapse. They sit in silence for a moment. Eventually, Dex reaches out to tap Nursey’s arm. “You okay?”

“This…” One of Nursey’s fingers traces the buttons on the spirit box. “This might be the best day of my life.”

They sit in silence for a moment more as the orchestra fades out, just him and Nursey’s hair catching gold from the window. God, but he’s beautiful like this. So much that Dex could almost forget where they were, like just for a second, he could let himself want, and nobody would know.

And then the door bursts open to reveal a flushed, panting Chowder, still gripping onto a crowbar.

“ _Christ!_ ” One of Dex’s hands flies to his chest. “C, you scared the shit out of—”

Nursey shoves him out of the way. “C. Chowder. Chris. We made fucking contact, dude. It said Dex’s _name_. Fucking shit, dude, we gotta get the EMF detector, like _now_ , before it leaves.” He starts to drag Chris out of the room, stops, and calls over his shoulder, “Stay here, gay ghost! We’ll be right back!”

 _Gay ghost?_ , Chowder mouths to Dex.

“Don’t question it,” he whispers back. “He’s way too far gone for us now.”

He really doesn’t know if he’s talking about Nursey or himself.

 

 

“Okay, okay, okay. Ultimate, ultimate alignment chart. Lawful/neutral/chaotic, and then valid, dumbass, bastard.”

“Ford is lawful valid!” Chowder sputters through a mouthful of popcorn and braces. “But not ‘cause she’s boring, because she’s not boring. She’s just, like, the validest.”

Ford beams. This has become their post-edit routine in the last few weeks, drinks and increasingly elaborate alignment charts. They’re not usually quite as dramatic as the Spotibi incident, but there’s an unspoken agreement in place to never again discuss the exact alignments of the Golden Girls. “I don’t know where you fall on law, but you’re valid too, Chowder.”

Chowder beams back. “What about you guys?”

Nursey answers at the same time as Dex. “Dex is a lawful bastard.”

“Chaotic dumbass Nursey.”

Dex points at him. “Listen, I’m a lot of things, but I’m not fucking lawful, and you know it.”

“You’re so lawful! And if I’m anything, it’s chaotic valid.”

“Last week you put a spoon in the microwave to help you scoop ice cream faster.”

“And it _would_ have worked if the glass hadn’t shattered.” Nursey pauses. “Okay, maybe I’m a valid dumbass.”

“That’s not even on the chart! Those two are in the same category!”

“But it works!”

Both of them jump as Lardo bangs a bottle of tequila on the countertop. “I’m going to kill you both.” When Dex tries to protest, she does a shot and cuts him off. “I just spent eight hours— _eight hours_ —in the editing room listening to you assholes argue about ghouls, and this is my safe space. I will not hear that shit in my safe space. I am here to drink and absolutely nothing else.”

She takes another drink, this one straight from the bottle and winces. “Anyway, none of you are fucking valid. Except you, Ford. And Chowder. Either of you fight me on this, I will make you _suffer_.”

Nobody moves or speaks for a few seconds. Finally, Ford, in her infinite drunken wisdom, pats Lardo’s arm and says, “Lardo, you’re a really nice neutral bastard.”

“That I am,” she replies, and nods sagely as she settles back down onto the couch. “Whose turn is it next week to pick the hunt?”

“Dex,” calls Chowder, consulting his clipboard. “Got any ideas?”

“Yeah!” Dex rolls over on the floor and grabs his phone to scroll through his notes. “We’ve got a...confirmed Mothman sighting down in West Virginia. Monongahela state park.”

Nursey, sprawled on his stomach across the couch, chucks a crushed-up beer can at him. “Fuck no. Not West Virginia.”

“What? It’s pretty this time of year. We could go camping.”

Grabbing another beer from the cooler, Nursey rolls over and snaps his fingers at Chowder. “Yo, Chowder, what’s the rule?”

“Ninety-four, out the door.”

“And Ford, what’s the racial breakdown of West Virginia?”

Sounds of a keyboard tapping from the corner. “Google says… ninety-four point six percent white.”

He turns back to Dex. “So Mothman is out until he moves to a better neighborhood. Next?”

Dex grimaces. The ninety-four rule is a safety measure they agreed on years ago for the good of the team. Unfortunately, most of the good cryptids tend to exist in fairly rural areas, so it eliminates some of his better options. “Alright, fair enough. How about Jersey Devil? We’ve got a couple requests for that recently.”

“Shitty and I are banned from Atlantic City after the incident with the magician.”

“The…” Dex turns to her, but Lardo doesn’t seem willing to expand on it, so he moves on. “Okay. In that case, I’ve got an email from someone in Washington state who specializes in Big—”

“ _Ugh._ ” She cuts him off with swipe of her arm. “No. I don’t want to have to hear your fucking Bigfoot sex call ever again.”

“It’s not a sex call, it’s a lure.”

“Yeah, a lure.” A stray curl, fallen across Nursey’s forehead, glows dark amber in the light. Dex’s fingers itch to reach out and brush it back. “Which lures the Bigfeet out how, exactly? With sweet, sweet, cryptid love.”

“For the last goddamn time, the plural of Bigfoot isn’t Bigfeet,” he snaps.

But Nursey isn’t listening. “Actually,” he drawls, sliding slowly to his feet, “you’ve never really told us why you’re so intent on finding Bigfoot. In fact, you’ve been on this team for _three years_ , and you’ve never even dropped a hint about that. And I think it’s because you’ve got an ulterior motive.”

Dex freezes. He doesn’t even look at Nursey for fear that his face will give something away. Not even Chowder knows about his crush, but somehow, somewhere, Dex must’ve let something slip, and now Nursey’s going to tell everyone.

In all this time, he’d known Nursey was smart, sometimes a little overbearing, but he’d never thought of him as cruel.

“Ladies and gentlethem.” Nursey wanders behind to the kitchenette and surveys the room, taking in all of their eyes. “Our boy Will has spent years chasing beings with us. He’s made it clear that he doesn’t believe in most of them. There’s not a lot of money in it, and the conditions are miserable half the time. So, why does he do it?”

“Nursey,” Dex starts to plead, but he’s on a roll now.

“Well! I posit that he has a motivation that he hasn’t shared with us. One objective. One single, solitary white whale that we have been unable to help him attain.”

Dex closes his eyes.

Nursey slams his hands down on the counter. “To _fuck_.”

The sip Dex was halfway through taking goes haywire. Through his coughing, he chokes out, “What?”

“That’s right!” Crossing back, Nursey points an accusatory finger at him like a bad TV lawyer. “You’ve been dragging us to bumfuck nowhere with that mating call for three years every time you hear there's a sighting. But we’ve never considered: what happens if Bigfoot answers it? _That’s_ the goal, isn’t it? You’ve been after that good, good Bigfoot dick this whole time!”

Dex sputters. “I don’t want to fuck Bigfoot! Jesus, Nurse!” He glances at the others, disbelieving. “Back me up here, guys.”

Silence. Lardo says, “You do own a Bigfoot mating call, dude.”

Ford adds, “And he’s the thing you always circle back to.”

He glances at Chowder, silently begging. Chowder shrugs. “You know what they say about cryptids with big feet.”

_Traitor._

Nursey, whose main purpose lately has seemed to be to make Dex’s life a living hell, sits in front of him and reaches for his hand. “Dex, Dex, Dex. This isn’t a place of judgement. We support you in your mission to fuck Bigfoot. In fact—” leaping to his feet again, this time triumphant— ”I, personally, will go into the wilderness with you, on this quest. For justice, for truth, and for Bigfoot dick. Now, who’s with me?”

He freezes, hands on hips, facing a dead quiet room. Finally, Ford raises her hand. “You know, it’s actually been ages since I broke out my hiking boots. Why not?”

“I’ll go!” Leaning off his chair, Chowder shoots them an enthusiastic thumbs-up. “I mean, I’m not sure I support the actual, um, fucking of Bigfoot, but I support Dex. And the woods are so pretty this time of year!”

They all turn to Lardo, who hasn’t said a word, even though she’s always the make-or-break in these arguments. With a long, slow sip of her drink, she regards them: Nursey’s power pose, Chowder’s dubious enthusiasm, Dex’s blush up to his hairline.

“Yeah, why not?”

Nursey whoops. “ _Yes!_ Alright! Chowder, can you help me book tickets to Seattle?”

He hurtles off towards Chowder, babbling somewhat incoherently while Dex resignedly finishes his beer. Once Nursey’s out of earshot, Ford leans over and squeezes his arm. “Hey, look at it this way.” She shoots him a little wink. “At least you’ll get to spend time alone with him.”

“What—” he starts, because _how the fuck does she know_ , but Ford is already gone, chattering to Chowder about cross-country camera transport. Only Lardo remains, perched on the edge of the couch and pouring herself another shot.

“You really did bring this on yourself, you know,” she tells him matter-of-factly.

Dex buries his head in his hands.


	2. Chapter II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nursey turns the camera on him. In the fading spring light, he’s lit up all pink and soft gold, and god, Dex has never been more in love. His wind-mussed hair and halfway flushed cheeks and dumb artsy scarf that he wears even though it’s way too warm for it, it’s all a little too much to handle. “Once more into the breach, dear friend. Any last words to our viewers before we embark?”
> 
>  _Yeah, I’m in love with you,_ Dex thinks.
> 
> "What did you say?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> General content warning for anxiety throughout. Also, GO CHECK OUT [ZIM-TITS'S ART OF CHAPTER 1 I'M CRYING](http://zim-tits.tumblr.com/post/181005173030/bet-you-think-youd-seen-the-last-of-this)

Two hours into the flight to Seattle, Chowder gets up. That isn’t unusual, but instead of coming back, Dex looks up a minute later to find Ford sliding in to take his place. “Hey! I asked Chris to swap with me for a bit. Hope that’s okay.”

Even though her voice is as bright as ever, Dex can see the traces of a tremor in her hands. Ford’s anxiety, which she usually has pretty well under control, always goes through the roof on planes. “Yeah, hundred percent. Do you want my fidget cube? I think it’s somewhere in my backpack.”

She smiles gratefully. “No thanks. I’ve got my crocheting in my bag. Just wanted to chat with you for a bit.”

Ah. So that’s what this is really about. He grimaces. “You wanted to talk about…”

“How long’s it been?

Dex closes his book and squeezes the bridge of his nose. “I don’t really know. A while, I guess.”

“So, like, around the time I started dating Angela?”

That was six months ago. “Before that.”

“A year?”

“Longer.”

For a long second, Ford studies his face. Her eyebrows shoot up, and her mouth, expertly lipsticked red, falls open in a perfect picture of surprise. “Oh. It’s been a while, hasn’t it? Does anyone else—”

Just then, the plane hits turbulence, and Ford shrieks and grabs his arm so hard her fingers leave white marks on his skin. He winces in pain. “Sorry, sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you,” she repeats, prying them off. “I didn’t mean to—I mean, you know how I get when we’re—”

“It’s okay.” Dex reaches out to take her hand from where it’s balled up on the tray table. “I get it. Squeeze as hard as you want. Next time I’ll find somewhere we can drive to.”

Apparently, that means “you have a free pass to break my knuckles”, but he doesn’t push her off. After a few seconds, she lets out a deep breath. “Okay. I’m alright. Sorry, I know it’s dumb.” 

“Hey, hey. It’s like me and small spaces. You just gotta get through it.” Considering how much he and Ford have talked a lot about their phobias, he hates that she still feels the need to apologize for hers. “Anything else you need?”

“To know more about you and Nursey?” She pokes him in the ribs, and he sighs.

“You’re evil, you know that?”

But as much as he’ll deny it if anyone says so, Dex adores Ford. She’s like a little sister who, unlike the little sister he has, actually texts him back within a day. “That’s the thing, there isn’t really a lot to tell. I like him a lot, he doesn’t know, and I’ll put my emotions in a small gay box until I inevitably die.”

He means for it to be a joke, but from the way Ford’s face falls, there must be something to his tone. She reaches out with her free hand to touch his shoulder. “Oh, Dex.”

Dex shakes his head. “It’s just a crush. It’s not like I can’t work with him or anything.”

“I know.” Ford runs her thumb comfortingly over his bicep, and Dex feels himself soften a little at her touch. Suddenly, her face changes a degree. “Hey, have you ever heard of lesbian sheep syndrome?”

The conversation shift is so sudden that it takes him a second to respond. “Lesbian _what_ syndrome?”

“Lesbian sheep syndrome. You’ve never heard of it?” When he shakes his head, Ford lights up. “Okay, so. When two heterosexual sheep are into each other, all the female has to do is stand there, and the male will sidle up to her and get things going, so she doesn’t really have to do anything. But when two female sheep are into each other—”

“Wait, do sheep have a lot of same-sex desires?”

Ford nods sagely. “So much. So, so much. The gay sheep probably clip their hooves short to signal it to others.”

“I don’t think that’s possible.”

“ _Dex_.” She flaps her hand in his face to cut him off. “Let me _finish_. When two female sheep want to bone, they’ll kind of stand next to each other and wait for the other to make a move, because neither of them knows how to start things, even though the attraction is mutual. It’s partly because they’ve been socialized to be pursued, instead of to pursue, and it’s partly because they feel there’s a higher possibility of rejection. So even if both of them are super into it, they’re not going to do anything. And that’s—”

“Ford, I love you, but this is definitely fake. We’re talking about sheep.”

“No, no, no! Listen! It’s much more common in lesbian circles ‘cause women are less likely to pursue, but I’m just saying you should think about it. You never know until you know, you know?”

She’s definitely gone crazy. “You read too much niche queer theory,” Dex tells her, instead of answering.

He starts to turn back to his book, but Ford squeezes his hand again and he looks up. “Okay. fine. We don’t have to talk about that, but I’m still freaking out a little bit, so do you want to watch something with me?” She smiles hopefully and holds up her tablet. “Please?”

Dex would probably die for her if she asked. “Yeah, alright. Are you caught up on Queer Eye yet?”

“Nope!” She scoots closer and leans her head on his shoulder—or rather, since she’s so short, his upper arm—before pulling up the episode. “You’re a good friend, Dex.”

“You’re manipulative,” he tells her, and kisses the top of her head.

 

As much as Dex will never, ever, in his life admit it, he kind of adores the West Coast. Not just for the hipster thrift stores Nursey drags him to every time they’re there or the way Chowder lights up when the sun sets over the ocean. There’s something about it that just settles him for a second, makes it easy to breathe again. The second thing they do once they’re landed (the first being much-needed coffee) is head straight for the coast, where the bitter-salt seaweed scent winds its way through Dex’s lungs. It smells like home.

Nursey pulls him out of his reverie, bumping him on the shoulder as he heads towards the water. “Feeling good, lobster boy?”

“No lobster out here,” he murmurs absently. “Not good ones, anyway. They’re all artificially introduced species.”

“Dork. Hey, come with me.”

He opens his eyes to find Nursey sitting in front of him, untying his boots and discarding them along with his socks on the pebbly sand. “Nurse, the fuck?”

“Swimming. Come on.”

“It’s way too cold.” Dex picks up Nursey’s socks, shakes them off, and tucks them into his boots. “You’re gonna lose a toe if you go out there.”

He looks up just in time for Nursey’s sweater to come flying at his face. “That’s the ocean’s problem, then.” Nursey twists around halfway through unbuttoning his flannel, a wicked laugh bubbling through the air. Dex’s own throat goes dry. “Don’t be a little bitch, Poindexter. You’ll feel so alive.”

As Nursey starts unbuckling his belt, Dex turns around and pulls off his own hoodie, if only to hid the blush creeping up his neck. Nursey whoops. “Damn right!”

“I hate you,” Dex informs him matter-of-factly, just as Chowder—with his consistently impeccable timing—calls, “Dude, get a room!”

“C! Come swim!” Nursey waves wildly at Chowder and nearly overbalances in the process. It’s adorable. “C’mon, it’ll be great!”

Chowder jogs over, half-laughing, and takes them in. “You guys are, like, nuts, you know that?”

Nursey shrugs. “We don’t have to if y’all aren’t cool with it.”

That’s the offer of an out. There’s always one, and Dex takes it more than he’d like to admit. He isn’t really a person who just does things, never has been. Nursey, Lardo, even Chris sometimes don’t feel it the same way he does, how sometimes the tension wraps his hands into fists and seals his feet to the floor, like their every action isn’t dictated by the little whisper in Dex’s ear that reminds him how this will be the thing that fucks it up forever. They’ll get frostbite, maybe, or Nursey will laugh at how skinny his shoulders are. He freezes, halfway through undoing the laces on one boot, and considers going back to the car.

Breathe in, he reminds himself, annoyed.

And then Chowder grins at him, indicates his head towards the surf, and asks, “You coming, dude?”

And barely a minute later, Dex finds himself sprinting toward the ocean in nothing but his underwear with the four people he loves most in the world. Lardo’s laugh, unadulterated for once, rings out ahead of him, followed by a glass-shattering shriek. “ _Abort!_ It’s too fucking cold for this!”

Nursey hits the water just after her, stopping short with a scream of “Oh, _fuck!_ ” as soon as the water reaches his knees, which makes Chowder, hot on his heels, slam into him from behind. They tumble head over heels over Lardo as Dex catches up, right in time for Nursey to pull him down into the freezing surf.

It’s cold. It’s really fucking gut-punch cold, enough to knock the air out of his lungs the second it hits his chest. Dex surfaces, breathless and shoving the air out of his eyes, just as the clouds finally break and drench them all over again.

It’s not a life-changing moment, or even a particularly unusual one. They go swimming in most outdoor places the show takes them. But there’s something about this one—Ford’s complaining that she’s going to lose a toe, Lardo on Chowder’s shoulders trying to challenge someone to a chicken fight—that makes Dex’s chest twinge in a way he doesn’t exactly have words for. Like this, here, wasn’t something he thought he’d ever get to have. Like he’s been waiting all this time for the other shoe to drop and everything to turn to dust in his hands, and right now, he’s not so scared.

 

The motel room is cheap as shit, but it works. What with the cost of travel and camera transport, they’re all crammed into one tiny room, which leaves the five of them arguing again over who has to share the two beds, and who gets the couch.

“I’m not sharing with Chowder again,” Lardo snaps, throwing her bag down on the questionable carpet. She shoots Chowder a slightly apologetic look when he pouts. “Sorry, kiddo, but you night-sweat like a motherfucker.”

“That was one time, and it was in Florida!”

She glowers at him. “It was three nights in Florida, and it was three nights that I didn’t sleep. Y’all can figure it out if you want to, but I’m sitting this out.”

They’ve been at it for ten minutes already, and Dex feels like hitting his head against a wall. The front desk said they were out of cots for the night, because that’s exactly his luck, ad it doesn’t look like Lardo’s backing down anytime soon.

Chowder pouts harder. “Well, I can’t share with Dex. His feet are freezing!”

“That wouldn’t be a problem if you didn’t sprawl,” Dex shoots back. He regrets it almost immediately. He isn’t mad at Chowder, not really, but they’re all fucking exhausted after traveling, and all he really wants to do is shower and pass out. “I can share with Ford, if she’s cool with it.”

“No. Uh-uh.” Ford holds up both her hands in protest and backs up, like the goddamn traitor she is. “If you think I’m going anywhere near those ice bricks, you’re out of your mind.”

“I can sleep with Dex.”

The room goes dead silent. Slowly, everyone turns to look at Nursey, who’s perched on the edge of one of the queen-sized beds, swinging his feet nervously. “I mean—share. I can share with Dex. It’s chill.” He half-smiles and offers the room an awkward shrug. Dex silently wonders if he can magically sink into the floor.

Fuck. Ever since he realized how big his stupid crush might be, he’s been avoiding being in too-close contact with Nursey. And now this. Ford might actually be trying to kill him.

Finally, Ford breaks the tension. “If Dex is cool with that, I can totally share with Chris, Lardo. Couch is yours if you need your space. Dex, sound good?”

All the focus in the room turns to Dex, whose mouth suddenly goes bone-dry. “I, um,” he half-chokes out. “Yeah. Great. Cool.”

Even across the dimly-lit room, he can see Ford roll her eyes. “Cool,” she chirps, all business. “I’m gonna steal some tea from the lobby if anyone wants to come.”

The others follow her, chatting quietly, but Dex hangs back. Once he’s sure the room is empty, he heads for the bathroom. It’s barely bigger than the closet, and not even the cracked mirror over the sink quite settles the way chest tightens, so he leaves the door open as he splashes cold water on his face.

“Hey, got a second?”

When he looks up, Nursey’s standing sheepishly in the bathroom door with his fists shoved deep in his pockets. Dex scrubs at his eyes. “Yeah, dude, what’s up?”

“It’s just—” Nursey cuts himself off, awkwardly scratching his temple where his undercut’s gotten too long. He swallows and tries again. “You had kind of a weird reaction in there when I said we could share. I know we don’t usually, but I didn’t want to, like, pressure you. I can take the floor, if it’s weird.”

Dex can feel himself flush all the way up to his ears. “Nah, dude,” he manages, almost casual. “Just, fair warning, they weren’t kidding about my feet.”

Nursey’s shoulders drop, and he lets out a half-relieved laugh. “Alright, but I do steal covers.”

As Dex walks out, Nursey bumps his shoulder gently and grins. “Ready for Bigfoot? I think we’ve got a shot this time.”

His face is barely three inches away from Nursey’s. So much for keeping distance. “Hell yeah we do,” he answers, and goes to bed with Nursey’s touch still burning on his arm.

 

Dex doesn’t think about it when he wakes up. He’s a master of not-thinking-about-it, actually, like he could probably win the Nobel Prize for Not Thinking About It and thank all his Irish relatives in his acceptance speech. He doesn’t think about it at breakfast (barely edible croissants from the continental breakfast), or second breakfast (decadent pancakes from the cafe down the street), or all the way through packing and equipment checks and the two-hour drive to the national park where they’ll be Bigfoot hunting.

He definitely doesn’t think about how he woke up with one of Nursey’s arms slung over him like it was the most natural thing in the world, or how his sleep shirt smells like Nursey’s deodorant now. Not a bit. Just like he isn’t thinking about the little knowing looks Ford keeps sending him or the way Nursey stole half his pancakes and made up for it by giving Dex his bacon.

But Chowder, Lardo, and Ford split off to set up base camp a little before nightfall, and for a few minutes, it’s just him and Nursey on the edge of a hiking trail. While Dex calibrates the settings on his mic, Nursey wanders around with his phone out, narrating everything like a mostly inaccurate nature documentary.

“And here,” he calls from the other side of the clearing, “we have the, uh, Weird-Ass Strawberry Plant, so named because its berries look like a weird-ass strawberry. Probably edible, worth future testing.”

In a panic, Dex glances up at the bush Nursey’s examining, terrified he's about to chow down on nightshade. Instead, he breathes a sigh of relief. “Just salmonberry,” he calls. “They taste kinda like raspberries.”

“Dare you to eat one.”

“I don’t know what’s peed there.”

“Coward.” Nursey sticks his tongue out and bounds back over just as Dex gets to his feet. “And here,” he announces grandly, “we have the elusive Bigfoot-fucker, at last in his natural habitat. It doesn’t appear he’s brought lube, so we’ll have to assume—”

Dex makes a halfhearted grab for the phone. “You’re such an asshole. Done your equipment check?”

“Set and ready.” Nursey turns the camera on him. In the fading spring light, he’s lit up all pink and soft gold, and god, Dex has never been more in love. His wind-mussed hair and halfway flushed cheeks and dumb artsy scarf that he wears even though it’s way too warm for it, it’s all a little too much to handle. “Once more into the breach, dear friend. Any last words to our viewers before we embark?”

 _Yeah, I’m in love with you,_ Dex thinks. “Let’s head for camp.”

He starts to go, but Nursey doesn’t follow. Instead, he stares at Dex, jaw slack, forehead creased. The phone dangles loosely by his side. “What’d you say?”

Too late, it dawns on Dex. He hadn’t just thought that.

“What? Nothing. I said let’s head for camp. We should get going, we’re losing light.”

Nursey points at him. “You said…”

Dex opens his mouth and closes it again, processing. This is fine. This is a situation he can handle. Nursey probably misheard him anyway.

Nursey’s voice is barely more than a whisper. He asks, “You love me?”

So it’s not fine, and Nursey definitely heard him. His hands drop in defeat.

But god, there’s something about the light here, and Nursey’s trembling voice, and maybe—just maybe—there’s a chance.

 _Lesbian sheep_ , he can hear Ford teasing. He opens his mouth to say it again.

“Dex,” Nursey blurts before he can, “what the actual fuck?”

Dex turns and sprints into the woods.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey, this is LATE. but [zim-tits](https://archiveofourown.org/users/beansprean/gifts) posted some [ART OF CHAPTER 1, HOLY SHIT, GO CHECK IT OUT](http://zim-tits.tumblr.com/post/181005173030/bet-you-think-youd-seen-the-last-of-this), which is maybe the coolest thing ever, and I got inspired. gonna end up being a three-parter after all, but i promise it'll get finished! thank y'all for sticking with me!
> 
> find me on [tumblr](http://playing-for-keeps.tumblr.com/)!


	3. Chapter III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Okay. Taking stock, he’s alone in Bigfoot-infested woods, at night, with an ankle that’s probably sprained, and he just told his best friend that he’s in love with him. This is fine.
> 
> This is not fine.
> 
> A twig snaps in the bushes, and Dex nearly jumps out of his skin. A second later, Nursey bursts through the brush in a flurry of leaves and debris. “You,” he pants, pointing at Dex, “need to… fucking… run slower.”
> 
> Dex’s heart sinks. Right, that’s what he forgot. Things can always get worse.

He’s not sure how long he’s running for, only that the pines are dark and thick and he has to get as far away as possible right now. Because Nursey knows. Nursey knows, and Dex can never take it back. God, this is how it always goes, isn’t it? This is the end of the show, or the end of the team, or the end of something big, because everything is going to _change_ now, just when he finally thought his life was going right.

His breath quickens, running the knife-edge of a sob. Of course it wasn’t going to go right. That’s just not how things work for him.

Suddenly, his foot catches at the same time as his breath, and he crashes to the ground, narrowly avoiding hitting his head on a nearby rock. The fall knocks the air out of his lungs, and not even before he’s done gasping, the pain in his ankle hits. “Fuck,” he mutters, sitting up to inspect it. It’s not broken, but when he rolls it, he lets out an involuntary hiss of pain. “Ow, _fuck_.”

Okay. Taking stock, he’s alone in Bigfoot-infested woods, at night, with an ankle that’s probably sprained, and he just told his best friend that he’s in love with him. This is fine.

This is not fine.

A twig snaps in the bushes, and Dex nearly jumps out of his skin. A second later, Nursey bursts through the brush in a flurry of leaves and debris. “You,” he pants, pointing at Dex, “need to… fucking… run slower.”

Dex’s heart sinks. Right, that’s what he forgot. Things can always get worse.

Nursey starts to say something else, but falters when he sees that that Dex is on the ground. “Hey, what happened?” He drops to his knees and reaches for Dex’s bad ankle, where his jeans are rolled up. “Are you hurt?”

The ankle has already started swelling. Dex starts to move away, but the jolt of pain that goes through his leg stops him short. “It’s fine. I think it’s maybe sprained.”

“That doesn’t sound fine.”

“I can handle it,” Dex snaps, because the therapist he saw exactly twice told him he externalizes anxiety as anger, and she was probably right. “I just—I don’t want to be touched right now, okay?”

“Alright.” Nursey holds his hands up, a gesture of surrender. “In that case, then, do you have any idea where we are? Because I just followed you, and we lost the path ages ago.”

Dex freezes. “ _Shit._ ” He’d been so in his head that he’d forgotten to look where he was going. Somewhere along the way, the woods have gone completely dark. “I don’t know. We’re lost, I think. Probably best if we stay out here till morning.”

If he didn’t know better, he could swear Nursey flinches at that. “Do you have a flashlight?”

He digs in his pockets. Nothing. “I must’ve dropped it on the way. You got any cell signal?”

This time, he isn’t imagining when Nursey swallows hard as he checks. “Zero bars. Okay. Um, cool.” In the dim light of his phone, his skin looks ashen.

“Nursey…” Dex narrows his eyes for a second, because it can’t be true. They’ve spent way too many nights in places like this for him to not have known.

Except that in all that time, they’ve never split up in the woods, even when it would have made sense to. He wets his lips. “Nursey, are you afraid of the dark?”

“No!” Nursey lurches back so quickly that he overbalances, landing flat on his backside in the dirt. Dex keeps staring at him as Nursey avoids his gaze, pulling at his hair where his undercut is starting to grow out. He huffs out a frustrated breath. “Okay, fine. A little bit. Not a lot. Did I ever tell you about the time my moms and I went on a camping trip?”

That’s news to Dex. He’s heard all about the beach trips to Rhode Island and the weeks in Jordan with Ammi’s family, but Nursey’s always been staunchly anti-camping unless it’s for a cryptid hunt. “You guys went camping?”

Nursey shoots him a look. “We went camping _once_.”

Dex stops.

Pulling his knees to his chest, Nursey shrugs irritatedly. “I was, like, six. We went out camping. It was a weekend. Mama thought it might be worth going for a night hike. Around maybe ten, ten-thirty, I got separated from them in the woods after dark, and I couldn’t find the campsite until daylight. That’s all.” He shrugs again and tilts his head back, and the little moonlight splinters over his face in a lightning strike. “It’s not the dark itself, just being alone in it throws me off.”

“You never said.”

Shrug. “It was never relevant.”

“Nursey, we hunt ghosts for a living!” Incredulous, Dex rubs his hands over his face. He’s halfway between concern and irritation, but Nursey’s sheer nonchalance is making him careen toward anger faster than he means to. “We spent hours out here, in the woods, in the dark, every other week. You _never_ thought to tell us you had a phobia?”

“It’s—”

Dex cuts him off. “No, cut the shit. We already handle, what, Ford’s plane thing, and my space thing, and Chowder’s bug thing, and whatever it is with Lardo and mimes, and we don’t even handle mimes. You can’t say it was never fucking relevant that you don’t like the dark.”

“No, look, you’re not listening to me!”

Something skitters in the bushes outside the clearing. Both of them jump, and Nursey freezes with one hand on his chest. “Shit.” When he sees Dex eying him, he snaps, “Okay, no, shut up. Being scared of the dark isn’t like planes or bugs. It’s supposed to be one of those things you grow out of, so obviously, I wasn’t gonna bring it up. Besides, it doesn’t even count on the show, because—”

“Because _what?_ ”

In the crack of moonlight on his face, Dex can see Nursey blink hard and look away. “It doesn’t count because I was always with you. So I wasn’t alone.”

Dex doesn’t know how to respond to that. So he doesn’t, and neither does Nursey. The silence that follows stretches long and cold between them, a line being drawn. Permanent. They’re just not going to talk about it, and that’s okay.

It’s broken when Nursey pushes up, taking a few steps closer to Dex. “So,” he says gingerly, taking a seat next to him. “Speaking of things we haven’t told each other.”

Dex’s heart sinks.

“When were you planning on telling me?”

Can’t talk, can’t do it. Not like this.

Nursey tries again. “Were you ever going to tell me?”

And maybe it could be worse, but he hates how soft Nursey’s being with him, how gentle. Dex isn’t good with soft. He isn’t really even good with feelings, not like Nursey and Ford are, and maybe that’s why he and Nursey always circle back to anger. It’s the one emotion that doesn’t make him clumsy to think about it.

But Nursey’s sitting a few feet away from him, just enough to give him space, and his voice make Dex feel breakable. And that hurts more than any rejection could.

“I wasn’t. Ever.”

That tone again, now beseeching. “Dex. Can you please, _please_ just talk to me about—”

“ _No._ ” Not this. Not now. Not Nursey, with one hand extended just a little toward Dex, and the kindness that Dex doesn’t deserve from him. Not when they’d both worked so fucking hard to get past all their differences and Dex took it and threw it all away.

He sighs. “Nursey.” It comes out exhausted, and just this once, Nursey acquiesces.

“Alright.” There’s a rustle of leaves as Nursey shifts in his spot. “Is it alright if I stay here? I just—” He swipes a hand across his face in a gesture Dex doesn’t quite see. “I really can’t be alone out there right now.”

“Yeah, don’t worry about it.”

“Thanks.”

There isn’t anything else after that, no real letdown speech, for which Dex is a little bit grateful. Instead, Nursey lies back beside him. They let the night air run between them, and it carries the scent of pale green things making their careful way towards the sun. By the faint light of his watch, it’s been about an hour since he ruined his life. Nice to know the world carries on.

For a wild second, Dex is thrown back to that morning on the floor of the asylum, the turning point in his (stupid, unrequited, overwhelming) feelings, and he’s hit with the sudden urge to lie next to Nursey again. To talk as easily as they always have. Hell, he’d offer to get out the spirit box again if he thought it would help, because there’s a part of him that loves it just because Nursey does.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

The forest keeps secrets. When Dex was a kid, his great-aunt Agnes told him that you can leave things there and let them grow over. Of course, she might have been talking about whatever actually happened to great-uncle Chester, because whatever that is, the family doesn’t talk about it, and Dex really doesn’t want to know. But it feels right, at least on some level, that whatever happens between him and Nursey should happen out here.

The forest listens, she’d said. As he listens to the faraway whispers of early-spring crickets, Dex can almost believe her.

Out of nowhere, Nursey asks, “Do you remember when Chad R. was talking shit about me to you and you told me?”

“Yeah, of course.” It takes Dex a second to process this. Chad had been a nasty piece of work from their old Dungeons and Dragons campaign. He’d been alright to their faces, but some of the things he’d said about Nursey behind his back had made Dex’s skin crawl. But that had been a year and a half ago. He’d almost forgotten it. “Why?”

Nursey fiddles with a loose thread in his scarf. He sounds oddly uncertain, as if he’s fumbling for words, and that in itself is concerning for Nursey. “Do you remember what you told me when you let me know?”

Now, Dex understands why he brought it up. “I said that you—”

“That I should know, even if I didn’t like it. Because I had the right to decide how I felt about it. You remember that?”

He can feel Nursey’s eyes on him, and he doesn’t dare look for fear of what he might say. “I do.” 

”So here’s my question. You feel some way about me, and I don’t know it. How is this different from what went down with Chad?”

 _Because that was me protecting you,_ he thinks. _Because that didn’t ruin us, and the thought of anything ruining us scares the living shit out of me. Because I was never risking losing you then._ “I don’t know. It just is, okay?”

“No, actually, fuck that.” It’s so sharp that Dex looks at him in surprise. “You’re not pulling that emotionally repressed shit here, so walk me through this, Dex. How is this any different from that?”

Dex matches his bite automatically. “That doesn’t have anything to do with this.”

“Bullshit it doesn’t! I thought he and I were friends, and you knew it was gonna upset me. But you still told me, didn’t you? Because you said—”

“That I respected your right to know, yeah, but that was a different situation. It’s not like I was telling _everyone_.”

Too late, he realizes he said the wrong thing again. He actually does look at Nursey now, but where he thought he’d see hurt, Nursey’s mouth is set in a stubborn line. “So, if it isn’t everyone, how many people know? Ford? Lardo? Chowder?” When Dex doesn’t answer, his mouth falls open for a split second. “Fucking hell, Dex, does _everyone_ know about this but me?”

“Can’t you just leave it?” It comes out jagged. He doesn’t mean to, but he can already feel his fists curling, the scared animal in his stomach start to growl.

“No, Dex, you’re not listening to me, that isn’t—”

“I am listening to you, this just isn’t something worth arguing over!”

“Yes it is!” Nursey’s eyes are blazing now. He’s up on his feet, voice rising, and Dex doesn’t know how to handle Nursey soft, but angry Nursey is something he’s all too familiar with. “Why is it that you get to decide what I feel about this? Don’t I get a say, or do you control that as well?”

“It doesn’t matter!” Dex is shouting too, entirely on instinct. “Whatever it is that I want, you made it pretty fucking clear back there that _you don’t want that_ , so it doesn’t matter what either of us thinks about it. Just let it be, Nursey, Jesus _god_ damn Christ!”

“Maybe I do!”

The shout echoes around the clearing, bouncing through the trees. Dex freezes. Nursey does too, only for a second, and scrubs his hands hard over his face as if washing it. “Maybe, I…”

But all Dex can do is shake his head. This isn’t real. He tripped somewhere, hit his head maybe. Or he fell asleep on the plane and any second they’ll touch down at Seattle-Tacoma to get ready for the shoot.

When Nursey finally looks up, his words are much softer, just barely audible over the rustle of the bushes. “Did you ever even think about asking me what I wanted?”

He doesn’t try to move any closer or sit down. For a moment, Dex feels zoomed in on, as if the world is narrowing into nothing but them, and he finds it a little hard to breathe in. “I didn’t think,” he starts, but he can’t think of anything else to say. Nursey holds up a hand, and he’s silent.

“Just hear me out for a second. Please.”

No sounds from the trees. The forest is holding its breath with them. He nods, and hesitantly, Nursey begins.

“You know how bad I am about impulse control, right? I’m not like you—you know, like, when I want something, I want it now, not later, and that’s how it is about everything.” The tremor in his voice is gone now. “I know you’re much better at that, so just imagine you’re me, alright?”

 _Alright, I have perfect hair and I love hearing myself talk_ , Dex wants to say, but he lets Nursey go on.

Nursey’s words have found their footing. They come out faster, like the first drops of rain in the moments before the downpour hits. “Imagine there’s this thing you want more than anything you’ve ever wanted.” He swallows. Dex’s mouth feels dry too. “And you’ve spent the longest time just shutting this feeling down because it’s not possible that that person could feel that way about you.”

Breathe in.

“And imagine,” and his voice is devastating now, low and warm as the night turns to honey around them, “that after all that time, you find out there’s even the barest chance that it could happen, and you’ve gotta start over because you got hopeful but there’s still no way it could happen. But now you can’t shut it down anymore ‘cause all of a sudden there’s this _what if_ , so you still can’t stop thinking about it, and you’re trying so hard to find a way to make the what if happen, and then it _happens_.”

He falters, and Dex thinks for a second that he’s going to stop, but Nursey sets his jaw. “Out of nowhere. This thing you’ve been wanting for so long, and it scares you so much, but it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to you.”

It’s as if he’s taken off a mask. Suddenly, Nursey’s looking at him with such raw emotion that Dex would need to look away if he remembered how. He’s beautiful, incandescent even, as the little moonlight that seeps through the branches throws quicksilver streaks through his hair. “Dex. Tell me you wouldn’t be caught a little off guard?”

Dex knows that after that, he should say something, but the words are just out of reach. Anything he wants to say sticks dry in his throat. Nursey’s smiling at him again, that earnest, delighted smile he gets when something really makes him happy.

Or maybe that’s just how he looks at Dex.

The forest and Dex breathe out.

Dex says, “You love me.”

Nursey’s eyes crinkle. “Bet.”

And just like that, the spell breaks. “ _Bet_ ,” Dex echoes. “You’re honestly just the worst.”

“Damn right.” He leans back against a nearby tree, shoving his hands in his pockets, and looks at Dex expectantly. “Are you gonna do anything about it?”

“Nursey,” Dex says matter-of-factly, “I really want to kiss you right now, but I can’t actually stand up.”

“Right. Shit. That.” Nursey takes two long steps forward and unceremoniously dumps himself in Dex’s lap, which sends a jolt straight through his ankle.

Dex yelps. “Mother _fucker!_ ”

“Shit. Shit. Sorry.” For an unsuccessful thirty seconds, he tries to position them in a way that doesn’t make Dex spit curses. They end up with Nursey kneeling over Dex’s legs, practically chest to chest. Dex can almost taste Nursey’s cologne. It’s not anything like he imagined it, when he let himself—it’s a thousand times better.

Which would be really fucking awesome, if he could get his arms to move.

Not to say he doesn’t want Nursey there. He does, like a can’t-breathe kind of wanting deep in his gut, but he doesn’t know if he realized until _right the fuck now_ how much of a chance that there is that they’ll mess this up. Dex has the sudden, all-encompassing feeling that he’s being swallowed by the earth. Tomorrow they’ll come by and find nothing but a camera and his fingertips peeking through the pine bed, and Nursey will be there to tell them how fucking idiotic he looked—

Nursey’s voice reaches him. “Dex?”

He drops back into reality. “Yeah?”

Nursey sits back on his heels and looks Dex over like he’s a particularly modern piece of art. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay. You seem a little…” He gestured one-handedly at Dex’s general blush, almost tracing his cheek. “Squirrely.”

“Squirrely?” Dex chokes on the word, even though it’s true. “Fuck you, dude, I’ve had kind of a day, in case you’ve forgotten.”

“No, Jesus. Of course you have. I just mean—“ Nursey exhales hard. Dex watches his eyebrows play out frustration, then affection. “You know where I’m at. I want to know where you are, cause it doesn’t really seem like not talking about things works for us.”

He’s being gentle again, soft in that way people never are with Dex unless he asks for it. It catches him so far off-guard that he finds himself answering without thinking. “I’m nervous.”

No answer but the crickets. Nursey waits for him to go on without pushing. Wherever the courage to keep going comes from, he’s glad it decided to show up. “Look, I like you. A lot. Which you know.”

A motherfucker of a grin. “I do.”

“Fuck off.”

“I can go, if you want.”

Dex’s hands grip a little tighter on Nursey’s waist. “I’d really rather you didn’t.” He starts to talk, falters, stops again. “I’m afraid I’m going to fuck this up. You and me. I mean, Jesus, you already know I’m not the best at communicating, and tonight hasn’t exactly gone according to any kind of plan.”

But his nerves are starting to dissipate, especially when Nursey’s hands start idly running up and down his arms. “Well, to be fair,” he drawls, fiddling with the collar of Dex’s flannel, “all of this could’ve been avoided pretty easily if you hadn’t gone all runaway bride on me back on the path.”

“Nursey, that’s bull. This is you and me we’re talking about. It was never going to be simple.”

“You’re bull.”

Dex holds up a finger. “Counterargument.” As Nursey opens his mouth to argue, he ducks his head and presses his lips to Nursey’s. It’s a risk, and a question, and a prayer, and it’s giving in to the want that burns in his stomach once and for all, because if there’s even a chance that this all goes to shit anyway, he can let himself have this.

Nursey exhales into his mouth, and Dex knows for a flash of a second that Nursey might be the love of his life. He only hopes he can be Nursey’s.

Just a second. That’s it, and then he pulls back. When he opens his eyes, Nursey looks stunned, eyes enormous and searching for something nameless in Dex’s face. He breathes, “Hey.”

“Hi,” Dex whispers back, barely audible.

“That was…” Nursey whets his lips. “That was convincing.”

Dex can see himself reflected in Nursey’s eyes. They sit another endless cartoon-pause moment, one of Dex’s hands moving aimlessly over Nursey’s chest. He can feel a sudden, sharp hitch of breath, the last second before the boat goes over the waterfall, before Nursey’s fingers ghost over his jaw and pull him forward, and he’s kissing Nursey back with a tenderness he didn’t know he could still muster. And it feels—god, but it feels smelling ocean breeze for the first time in months, and like hours sprawled over each other on the editing room couch, and like violins echoing off stone walls, and like every time he’s heard Nursey really laugh for three years, and like setting out somewhere and coming home all at once. Like they’ve been doing it the whole time.

In a way, he supposes they were.

Nursey’s teeth slide over his lip and Dex forgets to be romantic because he might die, like actually right now, if that happens again. In the dark, he can’t be fucked to care that Nursey’s stupid scarf gets stuck on his shoulders when Dex pushes it off, or that he’s definitely way too breathless to be anywhere near attractive. None of it matters. All that matters is the gut-punch gasp he hears when he bites down on Nursey’s collarbone, punctuated by a short, sharp “ _Fuck,_ ” and Nursey dragging him back up to kiss him again.

“Shirt,” Nursey mumbles, and Dex grunts some kind of agreement, fumbling with the buttons of his flannel. It’s clumsy, mostly because they don’t want to stop kissing, but he’s just moving to unzip Nursey’s jacket when a twig snaps behind him, and his heart skips a full three beats.

He pulls back. “Did you hear that?”

“It’s nothing.” Nursey seems distracted, mostly concerned with untucking Dex’s undershirt.

Dex pulls his hands away. “There’s something here. I heard it.”

“You’re overreacting.”

“Nursey,” Dex says matter-of-factly. “You and I both know that this is exactly how every shitty horror movie we’ve ever seen starts. So are you going to believe me, or do you want to be the first one to die?”

Nursey rolls his eyes. “Dude, I was gonna get got anyway. Brown people die first in those, remember?” He seems like he’s going to say something else, but the sound comes again, closer this time, and he jolts. “Oh, shit!”

Dex takes a mental inventory. Even if it isn’t Bigfoot, they’re still pretty fucked—no flashlight, no cell signal, no bear spray, and he can barely walk. “Look, if you have to leave me here, that’s fine. Take care of yourself first.”

“No fucking way.” Nursey’s nails are digging tiny crescents into Dex’s skin. “If we die,” he whispers, “I’m really glad I got to tell you how I feel about you.”

“That’s cool,” Dex hisses back. “If we die, I’m going to fucking kill you.”

“Here.” Letting go of his vice-grip on Dex’s shoulders, Nursey rolls off his lap and grabs a nearby stick to hand to Dex. “You’ll need a weapon.”

The stick looks like it’d break if the wind blew too hard, but Dex smiles in spite of himself. “Thanks, dude.”

The noise sounds again from a different direction, and they both jump this time. It’s definitely getting closer, maybe circling them. Coyotes? They might be able to scare something small off, but things out here get ballsy at night. Dex doesn’t want to think about what’s going to happen if they run into something that’s feeling particularly brave.

He’s just about to tell Nursey to get up the nearest tree when, through the bushes, he hears a voice: “Guys? Is that you?”

Dex almost bursts out laughing.

“Over here!” he yells, and finds himself suddenly blinded by a flashlight as Chris Chow, with his consistently _impeccable_ timing, bursts into the clearing, talking a mile a minute.

“Dude, you can’t just disappear like that! We’ve been trying to reach you for hours! Ford’s been, like, freaking out, and Lardo’s been talking to park services, and…”

He trails off, suddenly, and shifts the flashlight beam to Nursey. In the sudden glare, Dex can see the line of Nursey’s throat as he swallows, as well as the beginnings of a blotchy purple bruse. “Nursey,” Chowder starts, “What’s that mark on your neck?”

Nursey opens his mouth, probably to say something stupid, but Dex beats him to the punch. Before his brain can weigh in on the matter, he hears himself say, “Vampires. The woods are crawling with them. Nursey was lucky to get out alive.”

The beam swivels to him. To his right, Nursey mouths, _Vampires? Seriously?_

Chowder seems to have the same qualms, if Dex can tell anything by the half-swallowed laugh in his voice. He plays along, though. “Wow! Did you get any on film?”

“They don’t show up on camera. That’s basic vampire lore.”

Both of them turn to look at Nursey, who seems to be regretting being born. He offers Chowder a weak smile. “We might have to come out again with stakes, C.”

A beat. Then Chowder grins, and Dex almost laughs with sheer relief. “Sounds like a plan. You guys coming back to camp, or are you, like, super busy out here?”

Nursey jumps to his feet and offers Dex a hand up. “I’m good to go, but Dex might need some help. He had a nasty fall earlier—y’know, fighting the vampires.”

Dex takes the hand gratefully. Nursey slides an arm under his shoulders, and a second later, Chowder does the same on his other side. “It was pretty bad. They’re fast little fuckers.”

“I’m sure,” Chowder replies, and jabs him in the side.

 

It takes exactly sixteen minutes for the collective internet to jump on the story. In hindsight, Dex probably shouldn’t have okayed the post (a disheveled selfie of Nursey, shooting the camera a thumbs-up in the park lodge, the marks on his neck on full, glorious display), but there were extenuating circumstances involved. Namely, Nursey smiling at him.

What he isn’t prepared for is Lardo, wild-eyed and pissed to hell, storming into the break room to brandish her phone in his face. “Do you know,” she hisses, and Dex fears God for the first time since he was twelve, “how many people have tweeted me— _me_ —to ask if you two fucked?” She doesn’t let Dex answer. “Four thousand and seventy-three, Dex. I’m not a fucking PR person. I majored in fine arts. I went to _public school_.”

Nursey, from his vantage point lying across Dex’s lap, yawns languidly. “We’ll get on it, Lards. What do you want us to do?”

He yelps as Lardo flicks him in the temple. “Fix it,” she snaps. “Y’all are cute as shit, but if I have to break my phone to stop these notifications, I’ll do the same thing to your skulls.”

She turns and storms out. Nursey aims a salute at her retreating back as Dex rubs a hand over his face. Finally, he asks, “So, what do we do?”

From this angle, he can almost see straight up Nursey’s nose. His nostrils flare and contract as he sighs. “It’s up to you, really. I’m out to pretty much all my folks, so it’s really more of a question of your comfort level. And Lardo’s.”

“And Lardo’s,” Dex echoes. It’s funny: a year ago, he’d be crawling up the walls with anxiety, but now, he’s almost surprised at how okay he feels. “I never told most of my family directly, but my parents asked me if they could mention it if it came up. So that’s not as big a deal. But…”

“But?”

“But this is, like, really new, and I’m a little scared too much publicity will fuck it up.”

Nursey thinks about that for a second. One of his hands finds Dex’s and rubs soothingly along the back of his thumb. “I think you’re right.”

That’s when Dex sees the corners of his mouth curl the barest amount. Something’s up. “But?”

The smile splits into a grin. “ _But_ , we have an incredible opportunity here.” Nursey sits up so suddenly he almost hits his head on Dex’s chin. “Hear me out: there’s this bridge over in upstate New York that’s haunted by a spirit that targets young lovers. So we go up there, and all of a sudden, _oh, Dex, we’re gonna have to pretend to be dating to tempt the ghost out, that’s funny_ , and boom, we’ve got the love story of the fucking century. We’d actually literally break Twitter.”

Dex can’t help the laugh that bubbles out of his throat, or the way his stomach flips when Nursey grins at him. “You’re insane, you know that?”

Nursey’s already fumbling for his phone. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m gonna look up flights.”

“Can we do a train instead? It’d be cheaper, and probably a ton easier on Ford.”

“Right, yeah. You know, if we could recreate an accidental confession…”

He rambles a while longer, still absently messing with Dex’s fingers, and Dex lets him. He doubts the little bit of quiet they’ve found will last much longer, especially if he goes through with Nursey’s ridiculous plan, but it’s nice while it lasts. He hasn’t had to remind himself to breathe for the first time in maybe years.

“I’m gonna go ask the others. Come with me?” When he looks up, Nursey’s already offering him his crutches. A few days ago, he’d be breathless, anxious, desperate to kiss Nursey and terrified of the consequences.

He doesn’t take the crutches. Instead, he grabs the front of Nursey’s shirt and pulls him in for a kiss. When they break apart, there’s a soft blush high on Nursey’s cheeks. He laughs. “What was that for?”

“Nothing. Leverage, mostly.” Dex slings an arm around Nursey’s neck and lets himself be helped to his feet. “Let’s go. If you’re gonna pitch this bullshit plan, there’s no fucking way I’m missing it.”

“Bastard,” Nursey mutters fondly. Dex presses another kiss to his cheek, which makes the blush darken, and when Nursey goes, he follows without a second thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GUESS WHO FORGOT TO UPDATE FOR TWO MONTHS WHOOPS BUT IT'S HERE PLEASE DON'T HATE ME
> 
> Anyway. Thanks to everyone who commented/left kudos/etc—even if I don't reply, y'all really keep me going. I appreciate you sticking with me. This is, obviously, dedicated to [zim-tits](https://archiveofourown.org/users/beansprean/gifts), whose Buzzfeed Unsolved AU inspired this whole mess. Go check out their art [here](http://zim-tits.tumblr.com/tagged/buzzfeed-unsolved-au)! There's some art of this story, which is straight up the coolest thing that's ever happened to me, but the whole AU is absolutely fantastic. Also dedicated to [absolutehorror](https://archiveofourown.org/users/absolutehorror/pseuds/absolutehorror), whose comments give me life, and to Kim, as always.
> 
> If you want to chat about writing/comics/anything, find me on tumblr, on my [main](http://playing-for-keeps.tumblr.com/) or [omgcp sideblog](http://mainehoe.tumblr.com/)!

**Author's Note:**

> Based on and with so much credit to [zim-tits incredible Buzzfeed Unsolved AU](http://zim-tits.tumblr.com/tagged/buzzfeed-unsolved-au), who was kind enough to let me use their incredible idea.
> 
> Title from Sam's Town by The Killers: _I've got this energy beneath my feet/Like something underground's gonna come up and carry me/I've got this sentimental heart that beats/But I don't really mind that it's starting to get to me now_


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